


The Power of Ender

by TheLOAD



Series: Ryan The Dragon [4]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Dragons, Gen, Kingverse, dragon - Freeform, minecraft au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 13:00:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 13,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7052860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLOAD/pseuds/TheLOAD
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Accepted as both a dragon and a knight, things are looking up for Ryan. But dark forces are at work, and he'll soon face a threat like no other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Whispers in the Dark

Alone in a high tower, surrounded by scrolls and books and all manner of sorcerous materials, sat a man. He was on the older side but not quite elderly, with streaks of grey in his black hair and a pair of spectacles resting on the bridge of his nose. The man, known most commonly as The Director, though known by some as Leonard Church, sat before a hovering crystal, a rune inscribed cube floating within two fields of energy. A gift from The End, and the secret to controlling the Endermen. And, hopefully, the secret to bringing her back.

 _And yet,_ a voice hissed into his ear, silent and deafening all at once. _And yet you cannot even manage to conquer a simple kingdom._ The Director shook his head. He was alone in his tower, with not even his Endermen thralls beside him, and yet as he stared into the crystal he could feel another’s presence. See two violet eyes staring back at him.

“There have been setbacks,” he said. “The kingdom is more skilled than I originally thought, and they have a dragon among their numbers now.”

 _A whelp,_ the voice hissed, unwilling to listen to excuses. _Nothing more than a hatchling still trying its wings. If you cannot defeat something so small, so insignificant, how could you ever be expected to rule in my name? How could you ever expect to alter the Crystal?_ The Director grit his teeth, glaring at the floating crystal before him.

“If you gave me a little more help,” he started. “You could send me a dragon to…”

 _You could not control a dragon,_ the voice snarled, its low hiss deepening into a furious growl. _You can barely control the Endermen. A dragon would never be your thrall, you fool._

“I just need more time,” The Director argued. “I know I can do this, I know if you gave me more time I could…”

 _SILENCE!_ The voice said, suddenly much louder than it had ever been. _I have given you nothing but time. This is your last chance, Director. If you ever want to rule in my name; if you ever want to see your precious Alison again, you will not fail me. You will attack the heart of the kingdom, the Castle, tomorrow with everything you have. You will bring the Crystal with you, and I will try to solve your dragon problem for you. But if I cannot, you have your monster, don’t you? Use it for once._

“The Meta is untested,” the man tried to argue, though he knew he was losing this fight. Everything he had he had because of his master. “I can’t be sure that I will be able to control it.”

 _You don’t need to control it,_ the voice assured him, dropping back into its whispering hiss, seemingly pacified. _You only need it to attack your enemies. The Endermen are expendable, if it turns on some of them. All that matters now is that you take the castle. Do not fail me, Church. You won’t get another chance if you do._ The voice faded away, as did the eyes, and The Director was left alone once more.


	2. Siege

It was just before dawn when the siege occurred. The entire castle, king, heirs, knights, servants, animals, and dragon was fast asleep, not suspecting a thing. That was until a chunk of End Stone crashed through the main wall, shattering it and allowing a hoard of Endermen to pour into the castle. It was nothing but chaos after that, with the guards working to get those who could not fight down to the safety of the escape tunnels while everyone else remained to fight. It was a bloodbath, and at the center of it all was The Director’s monstrosity. The Meta.

Whatever The Meta was, it was a monster. It seemed to be a man, or perhaps it had once been a man, but now it was fused with the remains of a Golem, the metal from the guardian grafted onto the body of the poor unfortunate who had been transformed. Flitting about The Meta were vaguely humanoid bursts of light, Spirits no doubt created or summoned by The Director to control his unfortunate creation. It would have been a sad sight, were it not for the fact that The Meta was currently tearing Geoff’s army apart, in some cases literally.

“Ryan!” Geoff yelled from atop a pile of rubble, gaining the dragon’s attention. Once he was sure Ryan was looking at him he pointed towards The Meta. The monstrosity was huge, and dangerous, but if anyone had a chance at taking him down it was Ryan. Understanding what Geoff wanted from him Ryan tore away from the Endermen he had been fighting and with a few powerful beats of his wings he lifted himself high up into the sky, the span of his wings partially blocking out the light from the sun.

A few heads turned as the clouds whirled around Ryan, and from the dragon’s body a powerful bolt of lightning crackled and flew, heading straight for The Meta. The beast roared in pain, but did not falter. Instead it shook itself off and looked around for some sort of weapon. It found it in a turned over cart, which it lifted up and hurled at he dragon. Ryan closed his wings to dodge it, but just as he opened them to pull out of his dive a chunk of castle wall was thrown at him, catching him dead in the chest and dropping the dragon out of the sky.

Ryan got to his feet, shaking off the blow, just as The Meta charged at him, one fist lifted into the air and ready to strike down on the dragon. Ryan snarled, lashing his tail forward and catching The Meta around the wrist, stopping the blow before lunging forward, attacking with claws and fangs. Ryan broke free of the fight and kicked off into air. He circled around, preparing for another attack, when a dark force invaded his mind. It was heavy and dark, suffocating and overwhelming, as though what was in his mind was but a taste of its true power, as though an army lay behind this small invasion.

 _Give in,_ it hissed. _You don’t belong with them. You were born to rule. Born to burn and destroy._ There was something alien about it, and yet at the same time it seemed so familiar, as though it was another part of himself speaking. Every horrible thought he had ever had rising up at once, demanding the blood of those he cared about. Urging him to give in and turn against them.

Ryan shook his head, trying to force it out, whatever it was. But for the time its claws were in his head and t disorientated him, causing him to lose control and crashed into a chunk of wall near Jack and Geoff. He shifted back down into his human form, hoping that would rid himself of the voice but it didn’t.

“Ryan?!” Geoff yelled out. “Are you alright?” The king’s voice was small and quiet, as though he was calling to Ryan from miles away, while a great wind filled Ryan’s ears.

_You know what you want. You know what you need._

“I don’t…something is…” Visions whirled in his head, memories that weren’t his. Of fire and blood, of an empty realm with dragons black as night. Flashes of teeth and burning purple energy. A flash of something else entered his mind, of a floating crystal in a sorcerer’s hands, a crystal of power and dragon magic, and it hit him.

“We’re going to need to activate Plan G,” Geoff said grimly, turning to Jack. “Tell everyone to retreat, I’ll throw the switc-”

“No!” Ryan said, standing up, having forced the entity from his head. “It’s the crystal. That’s how he’s controlling the Endermen. If we can destroy the crystal…”

“We end the fight,” Jack finished “But how? We can’t possibly get close enough to it.” Ryan paused, thinking for a moment. Trying to figure out a way to destroy the crystal at a distance.

“We need Jeremy,” Geoff said suddenly. “And Gavin.”

——

“Are you sure this is going to work?” Geoff asked as Gavin climbed onto Ryan’s back, with Jeremy waiting to throw his potions.

“I think so,” Ryan said. “It’s definitely that Crystal, and if Gavin places an arrow right into the center then it should destroy it. Hopefully.”

“It’s the best shot we have,” Jack said, giving a resigned sigh. "Just be careful." Ryan gave a short nod and shifted back into a dragon. Once Gavin had positioned himself between the dragon’s wings Jeremy tossed a potion onto each of them, then tossed a few more onto Ryan for safe measure. Both the dragon and rider vanished save for the telltale shimmer of magic, which wouldn’t be noticeable at a distance. There was a gust of wind, the only indication that Ryan had taken off, and they were soon making their way towards The Director. Gavin leveled his bow, drew back the string, and took the shot.

The second the arrow collided with the crystal the whole thing exploded, sending The Director flying back and scattering the Endermen closest to him. And then a change seemed to come over them. The Endermen stopped fighting, or at least most of them did, and they started to flit away from the battlefield. It had worked. Ryan had been right and his plan had worked.

"No,” the Director said, getting to his feet. “No, no. This can’t be. I can’t lose like this.” He glared in the direction the arrow had come in, and Ryan dove, intent on capturing the man. But before he could The Director, and The Meta, vanished, flitting away almost as though they were Endermen themselves.

Ryan landed with a snarl, enraged that they had escaped, but all around him everyone else was cheering. The Endermen were retreating, and for the time at least it seemed as though they had won.

———–

At the time they had all been so sure they had won, but in the weeks following the battle Endermen were still being sighted in the kingdom. Sure, they had always been there, but the sightings were still too great. Attacks had fallen, but were still too common, and everyone was at a loss for the reason. The Director’s crystal had been the reason for the full scale assaults, but clearly something else was keeping the Endermen in the kingdom.

It fell onto Jack to come up with a solution, as usual, and also as usual the Hand found the answer in the vast library of the kingdom, or at least what remained of it after the battle. In an old book on monster lore it described how staring at an Enderman’s feet would bind it to the world, preventing it from teleporting away. It seemed ridiculous, but they had nothing to lose just by trying, so everyone set out into the woods to try and trap an Enderman.

——-

As it turns out trapping an Enderman was, as the King himself would say “hard as dicks.” But they finally managed to have one trapped, with Ray and Gavin given the jobs of staring at its feet so it couldn’t escape.

“Alright, Enderman,” Geoff said. “You’re gonna tell us why you’re all still here. We destroyed the crystal, so why haven’t you gone back to The End?” The Enderman twisted in its restraints, trying to escape, but the chains were too strong, and the magic holding it in place solid.

“Look,” Ryan said. “We don’t want any trouble. So why don’t you just tell us why you’re here.”

“Tell us or we’ll stab you and find another one,” Michael added, ever the diplomat. The Enderman struggled a bit more before relenting.

“We…cannot,” it said finally. “We cannot return.”

“Why?” Jack asked. “Why can’t you go back to The End?” The Enderman took a shuddering breath before speaking.

“The Dragon.”


	3. Prepare For Trouble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is shorter than I would have liked, and I apologize for that, but this month has been a lot for me.
> 
> In the middle of the month I was on vacation in Hawaii for ten days, during which time I was unable to type anything. When I returned from vacation I learned that my dog has passed away while we were gone, and after that I just wasn't in the mood to write.
> 
> Next chapter will be longer, but this one is fairly short.

“The dragon?” Ryan asked, looking from the Enderman to his companions. “But I haven’t done anything.” The Enderman groaned, and Ryan would have sworn he saw the creature roll its eyes.

“Not _you_ ,” it hissed. “ _The_ Dragon. The Ender.” Oh. Well that made a lot more sense.

Ender dragons were common in The End, but there was only a single Ender Dragon, the master of the species and the guardian of the spires. Which, now that everyone stopped to think about it, that crystal that The Director had did look an awful lot like the drawings of End Crystals.

“But why is the dragon forcing you here?” Geoff asked. He knew the stories his own people told about dragons, stories which meeting Ryan had soundly dashed, but he had also always assumed that the Endermen and The Ender Dragon lived in relative harmony.

“The Dragon is cruel,” the Enderman said. “It slays any others who try to usurp it’s position, and it is not content with The End. It wants more land, more power. It gave the Crystal to the Mage, taught him how to control us, and even now refuses to let us return home. Those who try, it kills.” Everyone stared at the Enderman in horror, for the first time realizing that they may be just as much victims of The Director, and evidently The Dragon, as Achievement Kingdom has been.

“We need to stop it,” Gavin said at once, without proposing how, exactly, they were meant to go about stopping an almost all powerful dragon. No one brought this up, though, because Gavin was right, they _did_ need to stop it.

“We’ll gather up supplies,” Geoff said. “I’ll have every enchanter and blacksmith in the city working towards making supplies for us. Ryan,” he turned and looked at the knight, “what do you know about fighting other dragons?” Ryan shrugged at that question, smiling sheepishly.

“Well you see…” While Ryan had had some training in combating other dragons, long ago when he was just a whelp living in the territory of a kind elder, he had never had to seriously fight a dragon in his life. Dragons were rare enough, and surprisingly social enough, where it had never been a factor. Despite the legends, dragons actually rarely fought one another. Not unless they really had to.

“Huh,” Geoff said, once Ryan had told him this. “Still, do you think you could try?”

“Oh yeah I can definitely try,” Ryan said. “The Ender sounds like an asshole.”

——

Once the materials were gathered, and the armor and weapons were crafted, the group set out in search of a stronghold. One good thing about the war, they had plenty of Eyes of Ender to use in the search.

In the stronghold they stumbled across an ancient library, its walls covered in cobwebs, its tomes dusty and moth eaten. Laying open on the table was an ancient book on dragonlore, opened to a page about The Ender Dragon itself.

“What’s it say, Jack?” Gavin asked, standing on his toes to try and read over The Hand’s shoulder.

“It’s telling about the race’s creation,” Jack said. “The End was the creation of a Draconic god named The Destroyer, the first Drake. It says that The End was formed from the loathsome thoughts of The Destroyer, and when it was born it tried to slay its creator and failed. Its body was shattered into the Ender Dragon race, and The End’s spirt still lives in The Void surrounding its home.” His finger scanned the page some more, going over the words as he tried to find some weakness to the dragon. “It says here we need to destroy the crystals before we can destroy the dragon,” he told everyone. Geoff nodded.

“Then we’ll destroy those crystals.”

They continued on, searching for the room with the portal to The End. Once they found the portal, they stopped in front of it, hesitating to go in.

“Are we ready for this?” Geoff asked everyone, only to receive a series on noncommittal shrugs. No one was sure what to expect, but they knew they had to take this monster out if their kingdom was going to survive.

“Here goes nothing,” Michael said, as he stepped into the portal first, with everyone else close behind.


	4. The End

The portal opened out onto an obsidian platform, hovering in nothing about a hundred feet away from a stone island, one that was also hovering in a black void. The stone was hard and cratered, a pale creamy yellow in color. All around the island reached tall towers of obsidian, each topped with a glowing crystal, reached upwards into what passed for the sky, when really it was just more void. Endermen flitted around the landscape, somehow looking anxious at the new arrivals. Ryan shifted into a dragon and crouched down, careful not to knock his companions off the small platform as they climbed onto his back. Once they were all on he flew them to the island and dropped down, changing back into a man once they were off his back. Everyone stood still, taking in the island more closely.

It was a hellish sight.

The surface was covered in cracked and jagged bones, bones of numerous species. A skeletal horse laid torn in two on a pile of rock, the bones of its rider still latched into its saddle. The half melted skulls of wolves lay off to the side, as though they had been dispatched as they had readied themselves for a fight. Armor lay empty except for some crumbling ribs and swords of every kind were scattered about, each one broken as though they were little more than twigs. There were arrows and bows and the bones of those who had sought to use them. Human skulls were pounded into near powder; cracked open like sinister eggshells. Black metallic bones, larger than nearly every creature the men knew, lay snapped and twisted all over the landscape. They came in many shapes, some long like the bones in a man’s arm, only much larger, while others seemed to be long twisting spines. At the end of one of these spines was something that left everyone’s blood cold.

A dragon’s skull.

It was the same black metallic as the rest, betraying the identity of the other mysterious bones, with a squared off jaw and long fangs. Its horns were silver and twisting, one snapped in half. The jaw was broken, laying shattered beside the rest of the skull. The entire skull itself was positioned at a sharp angle to the spine, a clue into the creature’s death. But worse of all was its size.

Ryan’s head was about the size of a man when measured from the tip of his nose to where it joined his neck. But this skull was half again as large as Ryan’s, the spine suggesting the total creature was about twenty feet longer than the dragon-knight’s massive bulk.

“What…?” Ray started, but he didn’t have the nerves to finish. He didn’t have to. They were all wondering the same thing. Something had killed a dragon that large, or even multiple dragons of that size, since many of the black bones were duplicates, with at least twenty skulls ranging from about half Ryan’s size to half as large as him. What could have done this?

Their answer came on blackened wings with a deafening roar. A shadow soared over the island, threatening to dwarf even the massive piece of stone. It landed with a thud, its weight crushing the stone beneath it’s feet. Everyone stared, looking up at the creature.

Its hide was black as the void it inhabited, covered in cracked and jagged scales. It stood on four solid legs, each one tipped with four curved talons. Its wings, massive sheets of scaled leather, were folded like those of a bat, the main claw digging into the stone floor, helping to support the truly massive bulk of the creature, which dwarfed Ryan as he dwarfed horses. The wings were tattered, covered in holes and tears, with ribbons of flesh hanging from the healed wounds. It’s tail twisted and curled, coiling around the obsidian towers, crushing the material as they tightened. The crystals glowed brighter, beams of light connecting them to the beast, which seemed to swell under their power. It’s spine was decorated with curved blades, running from its head to the tip of it’s tail. The beasts head was massive, large enough to swallow a cart and its horses whole. It was crowned with a crest of silver horns, too numerous to count. They were twisted and snapped and pointed in every direction, some curving forward and others wrapping around one another. The most color that could be found in the monster was its eyes. Two sunken points of violet light glowed from beneath the silver crown, staring directly at the small gathering as its fang lined jaws parted in what might have been a smile.

The Ender Dragon.

 _I've been waiting for you,_ The Ender Dragon hissed out, though its mouth did not move. It seemed almost as though the voice rasped into existence from all around them, instead of coming from the dragon itself.

"Good," Geoff said, drawing his sword. "Because we've come a long way just t-" The Ender turned its head and shot out a blast of purple energy, which scorched the ground at Geoff's feet.

 _Not you!_ The voice snarled. _Lesser creatures, puny creatures. No, I am talking to my kin._ Its eyes, two pinpoints of violet, turned to gaze down upon Ryan. _The Golden One. Show yourself for what you are, there's no need for secrets here._

Something in the dragon's voice was compelling, urging Ryan to obey. There was an echoing hum coming from The Ender, a low sound which vibrated up Ryan's spine and cut right to his core. And those eyes...Ryan found himself gazing deep within them, and he was certain he could see back lifetimes, to the Ender Dragons who had come before. To the first Ender, the child of The Destroyer. And perhaps, if he looked deeper still, he would see the fearsome drake himself, his wingless body the color of a man's lifeblood spilled onto the sand.

Without thinking Ryan stepped forward, heedless of any danger, and shifted. Where a man once stood a drake now walked, his wings unfurling slowly as he prepared to join the ancient.

"Ryan!" Geoff's voice broke the dragon from the spell he had been under, and with a shake of his great head Ryan was fully free of The Ender Dragon's hold. With a snarl the creature's jaws parted, and a blast of purple energy erupted from its throat. Ryan leaped back and the blast consumed the ground where he had once stood. Ryan raced to place himself between his fellows and the monster, and let loose a torrent of flame. The flame scorched The Ender's side, and for a split second the blast died down. But the crystals around them glowed, and soon the dragon was healed, attacking once again. The Ender turned its head and the blast followed Ryan, until he and the others were forced to take refuge behind an outcropping of End Stone.

“We need to take out those crystals,” Michael said, and everyone nodded. He was right. So long as those crystals were whole, the dragon could not be harmed.

“Alright,” Geoff said. “Here’s what we’ll do. Ryan? You distract the dragon, and do everything you can to hurt it.” Ryan nodded. He wasn’t looking forward to it, but he was the only one who could stand a chance. “Ray? Gavin? You two need to take out those crystals. The rest of us will do what we can, destroying crystals if we can reach, attacking the dragon if it comes near us, taking out any Endermen we need to. Everyone got that?” The group nodded, all of them with the same amount of dread as Ryan. “On the count of three. One. Two. Three!”

Ryan burst free of his cover, wings flapping rapidly to bring him right to the Ender Dragon.

He met the dragon with a heavy thud, his claws swiping into the flesh of the beast's neck, carving deep grooves which healed almost at once. The Ender snarled, and clawed as well, cutting into Ryan's scales and flesh. But the crystals were fickle, and so Ryan's wounds were healed as well.

Ryan breathed in deeply and exhaled a blast of crackling flame as he broke free of the other dragon. He flapped his wings rapidly, rising higher, and The Ender followed him, flying much slower for its vast size.

Distracted as the dragon was, it did not notice the humans all about it, making their way up to the crystals and shattering them. It was too far from them to be harmed in the backlash, blinded by rage and the desire to see Ryan dead.

Once the final crystal was destroyed Ryan spread his wings wide, stalling in the air, before turning to hover. He inhaled deeply, focused his energy, and let loose a blast of orange energy. Not fire, not lightning, it seemed to be raw light, raw plasma. It caught Ryan off guard, for he did not know he could do it, but more importantly it caught the Ender dead on, and the dragon faltered, momentarily blinded. With a snarl Ryan dove, slashing and tearing at the wings of the monster he was battling. The Ender snapped at him, but Ryan was smaller, quicker. He flapped away before he could be snatched, and soon enough The Ender Dragon's wings had been torn to ribbons.

And that is when the beast began to fall.

Unable to flap, the dragon fell, only stopping once it came in contact with something solid. In this case, it was one of the pillars, and the obsidian obelisk pierced through the beast’s hide, impaling it. Violet ichor dripped from the wound, was coughed from the dragon’s mouth, and slowly but surely The Ender Dragon began to die.

Ryan and the others gathered in front of the dying beast, who simply laughed despite it’s pain.

 _Seems you have won._ It let out a hacking cough, spraying blood everywhere. _Claim your prize. Claim the territory._

“We’re not here for your land,” Geoff spat. “We came here to kill you, so that you won’t be able to torment anyone ever again.” The dragon laughed before coughing, and everyone could see its body starting to fall apart.

 _Then you are fools._ These were the beasts last words before its eyes flickered, and the violet light shut off forever.

Almost immediately after, the beast’s flesh melted away, leaving an ebony skeleton behind.

And there in the ribcage, where the beast’s heart, had it ever had a heart, had rested, was an Ender Dragon Egg. Blinking they stepped towards it, unsure what to do.

“Is this...is this the Ender Dragon?” Ray asked. He turned to Jack, who shook his head.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “It is but it isn’t. The book was unclear on how much of it is reincarnation and how much of it is a last minute reproduction.”

“If it’s that thing,” Michael started, lifting up his sword above the egg, “we should destroy it.”

“Michael no!” But before Geoff’s words could register the Lad had already brought his sword down onto the egg...only to have it vanish the second the blade would have touched the shell.

“Huh?” Michael said, frowning.

“The bloody thing vanished!” Gavin said, amazed. At once everyone started to look around for it, only to have Jack find it behind a charred saddle. But as he tried to pick it up it vanished again. This went on, until they learned that only Ryan was able to lift it.

“So are we gonna keep it?” Ray asked. “Or should we just leave it here?”

“We have Ryan,” Geoff said. “One more dragon can’t hurt. And it’s just an egg.” Before matters could be debated further, the sound of flapping wings forced everyone back through the portal, before the other Ender Dragons could arrive.


	5. Egg Journal

_On the advice of Jack, Geoff set up a journal near the egg, so that the incubation of an Ender Dragon could be documents._

Entry #1

> The egg has been successfully relocated to the castle, in one of the high towers so that it can get plenty of light. Ryan thinks it should be kept warm, so we wrapped blankets around it. Or tried to at least. The egg teleported away and we spent the rest of the afternoon trying to relocate it.
> 
> When we finally got it back, we figured it was just easier to place a bunch of active furnaces around the egg. And blankets. This time we had Ryan place the blankets. Hopefully this will work.
> 
> Hopefully this egg isn’t going to hatch and kill us all.
> 
> -Geoff

Entry #2

> So Jeremy lost the egg today. The fucking idiot threw a potion of invisibility at it, and it must have seen it as an attack because the egg teleported away. Do you have any idea how hard it is to locate a teleporting dragon egg? Really fucking hard. Want to know how hard it is to find an invisible teleporting dragon egg? Just fucking impossible. Especially when the damn thing teleports into lava. GUESS DRAGON EGGS CAN GO IN LAVA NOW! GUESS THAT HELPS WITH THE KEEPING IT WARM PROBLEM!
> 
> Ryan got the egg out of the lava. Jeremy is banned from the egg.
> 
> -Michael

Entry #3

> Excerpt From ‘The Draconomicon: Dragon Lore and Biology.’ Copied by Jack Patillo, Hand of the King Geoffrey Ramsey.
> 
> _The ENDER DRAGON is famous, some would say infamous, for having eight known morphs, each with differing appearances and abilities._
> 
> _The most famous morph is the ENDER MORPH, named after the species and believed to be the original version. They are black in color with violet eyes, and have the ability to destroy matter with touch and breath. Some can even pass through material, suggesting teleporting abilities. Eggs incubated near End Material, or with no other influences hatch into this morph._
> 
> _The FOREST MORPH is green in color, and can spread plant and fungal growth with their breath and touch. They are noted for being rather tame, and hatch when an ENDER EGG is incubated surrounded by vegetation._
> 
> _The WATER MORPH is blue in color, and breathes out a torrent of water. It is believed that this morph can shift itself into water as well. As should be expected, an ENDER EGG hatched in or near the water becomes a WATER ENDER._
> 
> _The ICE MORPH is white, with the look and feel of snow. They breathe out cold, and spread ice and snow with their travels. It is even said that they melt when die, though this is not unusual given reports of THE ENDER DRAGON disintegrating when slain. ENDER EGGS incubated in the ice and snow hatch out as this morph._
> 
> _The FIRE MORPH is the common colors of flame, red, yellow, and orange. They breathe fire, and burn to the touch. An ENDER EGG hatched near the lava or a flame will become one of these._
> 
> _The NETHER MORPH resembles a dragon carved from Netherrack. They breathe out lava and, like the FIRE MORPH, burn to the touch. A dragon incubated in The Nether, or surrounded by its materials, becomes a NETHER ENDER._
> 
> _The GHOST MORPH is skeletal, with a ghostly aura around its flesh. It hatches in the deepest of caves, the darkest of caves, where the Void rests beneath it. Additionally, GHOST ENDERS can be formed from the spirits of slain ENDERS who have bonded to a human, granting them a second life. Its breath leaches away the life of those around it._
> 
> _The AETHER MORPH is light blue in color, with white wings and gold and blue markings. They breathe out a cool, revitalizing mist, capable of healing any ill or injury. ENDER EGGS hatched high in the clouds become an AETHER ENDER._

Entry #4

> Wait, you mean if we hatch this thing somewhere else we could get a different dragon? I want an Aether dragon, someone help me bring this egg up a mountain.
> 
> -Lindsay

Entry #5

> We lost the egg again today.
> 
> It was all Ray’s fault. He read Jack’s entry about the Forest dragon and decided a dragon that can make roses was exactly what he needed. So he grabbed the egg to move it, and it teleported away. Like it always does! Then he got the brilliant idea to just keep touching it until it stopped in a forest or meadow or something.
> 
> As the only one here able to touch the egg, I had to go retrieve it. Again.
> 
> -Ryan

Entry #6

> So wait if we had left it in the Lava we would have gotten a fire dragon?
> 
> -Michael

Entry #7

> Michael do NOT move the egg into the lava.
> 
> -Geoff

Entry #8

> Don’t worry Geoff, I wasn’t going to. By the way, the egg is in the Nether if anyone needs it. Maybe Ryan should go get it, there’s a Ghast floating around.
> 
> -Michael

Entry #9

> So if we bury this in a cave will we get a Ghost dragon? Because I want to do that now.
> 
> -Matt

Entry #10

> Read through the book again. Turns out THE Ender Dragon egg, the one that comes from the old one’s corpse, is immune to the elemental affects. Sorry everyone, no Forest/Aether/Nether/Ghost dragons for any of you.
> 
> -Jack

Entry #11

> Will it still become a ghost if we kill it?
> 
> -Matt

Entry #12

> Matt if you touch that egg I will throw you off the roof.
> 
> -Ryan

Entry #13

> Despite the abuse the egg has been taking lately the shell remains firm. Whether or not the embryo inside is fine is less certain. The books I have suggest that so long as the magic can still be seen around the egg, usually appearing as colored sparks, with the colors depending on the morph, the egg is still alive.
> 
> Currently there are purple sparks around the egg, not unlike when an Enderman moves, so I’ll count that as a good sign.
> 
> -Jack

Entry #14

> We should probably think of a name for this thing before it starts hatching.
> 
> -Geoff

Entry #15

> Oh shit it’s hatching. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.
> 
> -Michael


	6. Hatching Day

Hatching Day

High up in a tower, surrounded by stone walls, the egg hatching. It was rocking back and forth, violet sparks of energy coming off it in an increasing amount, even as bits of the shell were flaking off in a fine powder. It was hatching, that much was clear. The Ender Dragon was hatching, and it seemed as though it would hatch at any moment, that within the hour a new dragon would enter the world, would see the tower as its first home, as its nest.

High up in a tower, surrounded by stone walls, everyone was losing their fucking minds.

"What do we do?" Michael said. "It's hatching, I didn't think it would hatch this soon!" He paced around the egg, circling it like a shark, unsure what to do.

"The book said the shell will disintegrate, and then the dragon will be out," Jack said. "It doesn't say anything about what happens after that."

"It will need food, right?" Geoff asked. "Babies need food. Ryan what did you eat when you were a baby? Do dragons need milk?"

"We _like_ milk," Ryan said. "But we don't need it. The first thing I remember eating was a spider."

"I think we have spider eyes in the potion's room," Ray said, already heading down the stairs. "I'll go get some."

"Don't get any fermented ones!" Geoff growled. "We don't want the baby to get drunk!"

"What about fish?" Jack asked. "I think one of the books mentioned fish. Ryan, you like fish, right?"

"Yeah I guess," Ryan said, shrugging and throwing his arms up. "Why are you asking me?!"

"Because you're the only dragon here, asshole!" Geoff shot back.

Which was a fair point. Ryan, by nature of being a dragon, knew what dragons liked the best. Just like how Edgar was the authority on what cows liked, and Geoff was an expert on the preferences of kings. But Ryan wasn't an Ender Dragon, he wasn't sure exactly _what_ sort of dragon he was, so he had no way of knowing whether or not the Ender Dragon would liked the same things he liked.

"Gavin," he said, turning to the lad. "Go see if we have any Ender Pearls. And Shulker shells. And that weird teleporting fruit." The prince nodded and headed down the stairs to gather the materials.

"Good idea," Geoff said. "Maybe it will like stuff from The End."

"That's what I'm hoping" Ryan said, just as Ray teleported back into the room in a burst of rose petals.

"I have the spider eyes," he said, and judging by how they were leaking he had gotten them fresh. "I also have seventy two roses. In case dragons like to eat roses." He swept back his cloak and the roses came tumbling out from wherever they were being stored.

Unfortunately, one of the roses happened to brush against the hatching egg, or, rather, one of the thorns did, and, feeling the slight scrape, the egg seemed to take it as a threat and teleported away, leaving nothing more than a trail of particles and an empty space.

"Shit!" Geoff said. "Shit, we need to find that egg!"

"Ray what the fuck?!" Michael demanded.

"I didn't know roses were a threat!" Ray defended. Jack sighed, and was already down the stairs. Ryan meanwhile was already climbing and jumping out of the window, transforming into a dragon in mid fall.

The egg, meanwhile, still very close to hatching, landed a ways away from the tower. In fact, it dropped down right in the middle of the dining hall, onto the table where Lindsay, Jeremy, and Matt were eating.

"Holy shit," Lindsay said. "Is that the egg?"

"Of course it's the egg," Jeremy said. "How many other Ender Dragon Eggs are in the kingdom?"

"Okay but what is it doing here?" Matt asked. "Shouldn't it be up in the tower?"

"Uh, guys?" Lindsay said, looking the egg over warily. "I'm pretty sure Michael said it was hatching toda- oh no it hatched."

Sure enough, just as Lindsay was speaking the egg shell disintegrated into a fine, black and violet powder, leaving a black dragon, about the size of a pig, sitting on the table.

From what they had heard from the others, it was a perfect copy of the Ender Dragon they had fought, only smaller, and very clearly younger, lacking the ornate crest of jagged and broken horns.

"Uh...nice dragon..." Jeremy said. "What should we call her?"

"How do you know it's a her?" Lindsay asked.

"Jack said the egg is supposed to be a clone of the mother, and since the other one had an egg at all it must be a her," Jeremy argued. His logic wasn't entirely unsound, though if he had bothered to read about the dragon himself he would have known that Ender Dragons were both male and female at once, changing with the tides and the moon, and that gender was a foreign concept to them usually.

The dragon, growing bored with their talking, started to wander around, her footfalls disintegrating the table as she moved. She smelled some chicken, ate it, then continued on to a potato, then a carrot, and finally some stew. After she had eaten her fill, which was most of the food left on the table, she curled up and went to sleep.

"Let's name her Kdin," Matt said. "That sounds like a dragon name, right?"

\------

Geoff and the others were later ashamed to admit that it took them seven hours to locate the sleeping dragon. None of them had thought to check the castle.


	7. Hatchling Thoughts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgot to post this yesterday, sorry about that.

The dragon, now named Kdin, sat on the table as the group of humans, and dragon disguised as a human, looked her over. She wasn’t exactly sure what they were looking for, exactly, perhaps they wanted to see if she was healthy. Or maybe they wanted to see if she would attack and devour them.

Which now that she thought about it, she was rather hungry. She had eaten everything she had seen before sleeping, but now that she was awake she found herself hungry again. And no one around her, not the large bearded man, nor the man with the sparking crown, or the other dragon, or the one wearing golden boots, were offering her food. Which struck her as rather rude.

*Excuse me,* she said in instinctual Draconic. *I am hungry.*

“What did she say, Ryan?” The crowned man asked. “We can’t speak dragon.”

 _Then perhaps you shouldn’t have hatched one,_ she said instead, this time using her mental voice.

“Oh shit she can talk,” Ray said. “I thought only the big one could do that.”

“So did I,” Ryan said. “I mean, I knew dragons could talk to each other like that, but I can’t talk to you guys like that. I thought it was just The Ender Dragon that could.”

 _I did hatch from their egg,_ Kdin pointed out.

“That…that is true,” Ryan said. “She said she’s hungry, by the way.”

“Oh that’s right,” Ray said. “I have spider eyes for you.” And with that he dumped the eyes in a pile in front of the dragon. Kdin looked at the eyes, still dripping with spider fluids. She lowered her head down, smelled the eyes, and decided that they would do, and started to eat them greedily.

While she ate, the others started to talk.

“How much is she going to eat?” Geoff asked. “Feeding Ryan is hard enough as when he’s a dragon, but this one is still growing.”

“Technically I’m still growing too,” Ryan said. “Dragons don’t stop growing. But I see your point. Hatchling dragons eat a lot, and they need to eat every day. Adults can get away with skipping meals, but young dragons need a lot of food.”

“Does it matter what kind?” Gavin asked.

“Meat is preferred,” Ryan said.

“I got it!” Michael said with a snap of his fingers. “We’ll feed her our enemies!”

“Can she eat Zombies?” Ray said at the same time.

“No to the first,” Ryan said, crossing his arms. “Yes to the second, dragons can eat zombies. Little foul, but edible.”

 _I would not mind eating Zombies,_ Kdin chimed in.

“When the sun goes down we’ll send some men out zombie hunting,” Jack said. “It’s nearing the full moon anyway, there should be a lot of them out.”

“What about bones?” Michael asked. “Do dragons like bones? Because if you do we have a lot of them stored up for the dogs. We could grind them up and make a nice broth.”

 _Broth?_ Kdin asked, cocking her head to the side.

“It’s what you put soup in,” Ryan explained. “Soup is…well it’s a thinner, more watery version of that liquid food you ate when you hatched. The stew. You can boil bones and scraps of meat to make a fatty and delicious broth. And the bones themselves have marrow in them, which is nice too.”

“And we have that teleporting fruit,” Gavin said. “And the Shulker shells and Ender Eyes. They’re down in the stores. I was going to bring you some, but then Ray made your egg run away.”

“Could you control that?” Ray asked. “Because if you could, why did you run away from the roses?”

 _I could not,_ Kdin said. _The egg itself was naturally enchanted to react to any stimuli which could be seen as a threat. The scratch of a rose could be an animal, or my egg could have moved to a harmful bramble patch._

"That, that actually makes a lot of sense,” Ray said. “I hadn’t considered that being born in a rose bush would be a bad thing.”

“Can you eat fish?” Geoff asked. “Because if you can that can help cut into the feeding costs.”

 _I think I could manage,_ Kdin said.

After discussing everything with the hatchling Geoff decided that the best course of action for the kingdom would be to feed her as much as they could, and from as many sources as possible. Bones and rotten flesh could take up the bulk of is, with other sources filling in as supplemental. But more importantly….

“We need to bring her too Roosterteeth,” Geoff declared. “Wait until those two see I have **_two_** dragons!”


	8. Gotta Catch 'em All

Getting Kdin near the horses was an issue. They had long ago become used to Ryan, or at least mostly used to him, but Kdin was a new creature, fully draconic from the moment they saw her, and didn’t understand right away that these hooved creatures weren’t prey, something that struck her as rather unusual. She was allowed to eat anything else with hooves, so long as she asked first, and so long as it wasn’t Edgar, but the horses were all off limits. Even the donkeys were off limits. It struck her as an enormous injustice. The horses smelled like they would taste amazing.

But the horses didn’t like her, and wouldn’t let anyone near them of they were carrying her, which meant riding the horses to wherever Roosterteeth was wasn’t going to work.

“What if we rode Ryan?” Gavin asked. Everyone paused for a moment, considering this new line of thought.

“It could work,” Jack said. “Ryan, do you think you could carry all of us? And Kdin too?”

 ** _He doesn’t need to carry me,_** Kdin said. _**I can fly on my own.**_

“Not all the way to Roosterteeth, you can’t,” Ryan said. “It’s a long way, your wings will get tired.” He thought for a moment, considering how much the five men would weigh, and how often he would find himself actually needing to carry Kdin.

“I think I could manage it,” Ryan said. “But only if Jack walks.”

——–

In the end, Ryan didn’t make Jack walk after all. Obviously, since that was a joke.

Kdin, as it turned out, had more stamina than Ryan had expected of her, and the young dragon only grew tired of flying twice during the trip. More common was her growing hungry, and with a surprising frequency they were force to land so that she could find something to hunt. The first time it had been a large amount of squirrels, the second time she found and ate a Zombie which had been either fortunate or clever enough to avoid the sun by means of the dense leaf coverage. The third time, she tried to eat a creeper, declared them inedible, and had settled for a bear instead.

“How do dragons eat so much?” Geoff asked, once they had reached the castle and dismounted. “Where is she putting it all?”

“She’s a baby, Geoff,” Ryan explained, once he had slipped into human form, and gotten dressed. “She needs to put on as much weight as she can.”

“Remember how much the Lads ate,” Jack pointed out.

“I don’t remember Michael ever eating an entire bear,” Geoff grumbled, throwing open the door to the castle and stepping in. Everyone was assembled in the throne room, and when they looked up Geoff made a motion signalling Ryan to shift back into a dragon.

Geoff then picked Kdin up in a single, fluid motion, holding her under the armpits for all the court to see.

“Look who’s got two dragons, dicks!”


	9. UPDATE: SHORT HIATUS

I had plans for this fic when I started it. I had a rough plot in my mind. But I’ve reached the point where the script has run out. I have plans for the next part, after this arc with baby Kdin, but I’m not sure what to do with the Kdin arc. So I am not going to publish a new chapter February 1st. I want to, instead, take this month to sit and think about where the story can go.

I will, however, start posting Mini Fics again, as often as I can, for the month of January and February.

Additionally, if you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them.

This chapter will be deleted and replaced with a new one when I start writing again.


	10. Sour Dreams

Kdin was seated at a special section of the table, given a golden pillow to rest on. The other kings, Burnie and Gus, Geoff had called them, seemed both thrilled by her and Ryan, yet at the tame time they seemed confused. Mostly confused by how Geoff had managed to get two dragons.

"Well you know how we got Ryan," Geoff said. "He just showed up in the forest one day. Jack and I thought he was a person! But Kdin here, she hatched from the egg we got when we killed the big one."

"The egg just appeared?" Gus asked. "You killed the dragon and just poof! an egg?"

"Pretty much, dude," Geoff said. "Jack said the books say it's something the Ender Dragon can do. Something about the magic connected to the crystals. When it's killed the crystals make an egg, sort of like a child and sort of like a reincarnation."

"If she's a reincarnation," Burnie started, "is she going to start acting like the Ender Dragon? No offense, Kdin." He added, turning towards the dragon.

"I don't think I will," Kdin said. "I don't feel like my parent. I feel like myself."

"Well that's good at least," Burnie said. "We won't have to worry about you disintegrating everything in the kingdom."

"Oh I can still do that," Kdin said. "I won't on purpose, but if I either focus hard on it, or loose concentration, I will start to destroy anything I touch."

"There's a lot of little dragon footprints all along the castle," Geoff confirmed. "Jack wanted to repair them, but I think they give the place come character. Plus, it makes it look like we have _terrifying_ mice."

"You're out of your bloody mind," Gavin said. "They don't look like mice feet at all. Mice feet are all long, and they don't have the claws that Kdin's does. It's more like we have a weird sort of cat running around."

"Oh you mean like a Puma?" Burnie asked.

"Yeah that's the one," Gavin replied.

"They look more like bird feet to me," Ray said. "I've never seen a cat with only three toes before."

"Kdin doesn't have three toes," Michael interjected. "She has four toes, you can count them right now."

"But one of them doesn't touch the ground," Ray countered. "So her footprints only have three toes." It was a fair point, though Gavin quickly interjected that birds didn't run around on all fours. Kdin watched the back and forth for some time before growing bored, eating some more, and then growing tired. She yawned loudly, a burst of Ender Breath accompanying the sound. When she stopped, she saw the whole room was looking at her.

"Tired?" Geoff asked.

"A bit," Kdin confessed. With how advanced young dragons were, it was easy at times to forget that, at the end of the day, Kdin was still a very young infant. Most of her needs could be fulfilled by letting her eat her fill and then sleep it off, only to awaken to eat even more. It was a cycle that no one could find a fault with.

"Come on," Geoff said, standing up from his chair. "Let's get you somewhere to sleep." He turned to Gus and Burnie. "Would it be alright if she borrowed the treasury?" He asked. "She likes to sleep on piles of gold."

Gus didn't look convinced, but before he could protest Burnie answered with a "sure, of course she can." Kdin stood up from her chair and followed Geoff out of the room and down to the treasury, where she found a nice pile to lay on and fall asleep.

\------

She was flying. She was flying over a vast, seemingly endless void. There was nothing but black above her, nothing but black around her, and nothing but black below her. If she dove, she would fall forever. If the rose, she would climb forever. It was The End, she knew that much from her parent's memory, and yet it seemed so much more vast than she could have remembered it. Surely, surely there would be at least some islands? Surely the void could not go on forever? Perhaps she just hadn't reached them yet. In her mind, it seemed impossible for the void to stretch as far as it did.

It came as a relief when she saw two points of light in the distance, two glowing orbs of violet. She beat her wings harder, heading towards them, but as she drew closer something seemed wrong. She suddenly felt as though she was being watched, and for a moment she swore she saw a flash of teeth beneath her. She stopped, hovering in place, no longer wanting to move towards the lights.

 _Sssseeeee?_ A voice hissed out. It was light, almost as though it was carried on the wind, or spoken by something drawing its last breath. _Ssssseeee what I have made, Father?_ It continued. _None causssseeee desssssstructtttion like my brood. Notttthhhhhing you have maaaade can eeeeven compaaaare._

She saw a flash then, of an Ender Dragon, the largest one she had ever seen, standing against a Lesser Drake.

The Ender Dragon was horrific. It was massive, large enough to dwarf even her parent, and it was far more ancient as well, its body marked by scars and wounds, by rot and decay. It was black, blacker than any Ender Dragon in her memories, black as the void, and its violet eyes held more hatred and malice than she ever thought possible. The Ender Dragon was horrible.

The Drake? The Drake was worse.

It was massive, large enough to dwarf the Ender Dragon, which didn't even come up to its knee. It had horns like a bull, sharp despite the numerous cracks and grooves, damage that showed they were well used.

It also had a crest, one made up of hundreds of gold and silver horns, though many were broken, giving it a lopsided, crooked look.

She could not tell what color his scales were, so stained with blood they were. And it seemed as though a new coat had been added recently, for it was dripping.

"We shall see," the Drake said. "We shall see, what she can do." He turned to her, looked into her with cold blue eyes, and Kdin awoke screaming.


	11. Need to Kill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No April Fool's joke for you guys, just an actual chapter.

Kdin kept low to the ground, stalking across the forest floor. It had been a week since her dream, a week since they had left the other kingdom. She hadn’t talked about what she had seen, only told the others she had a nightmare, and Geoff had insisted on bringing her home at once. She had felt guilty, was worried the other kings would be cross, but they didn’t seem to mind. Like Geoff, they cared about getting her somewhere she would feel safe.

But she didn’t feel safe. The dream hadn’t returned, but she couldn’t shake the feeling in her bones that something was wrong. That she was being watched.

She growled low in her throat, her claws carving into the ground as she stalked low through the forest. Part of her wanted to tell the others, to ask for help. But she knew there would be none. Ryan knew painfully little about their kind, having hatched out alone, without any kin to guide him. He didn’t even know what breed he was. And Jack’s books could only do so much. An entire king’s library at his disposal, and free access to another library, and still she doubted he would be able to help.

Perhaps she couldn’t be helped. Perhaps this was a flaw inherent in her kind. Perhaps Enders were simply broken.

Or perhaps it was only her, born from some cruel and abhorrent monster. From what she could remember, the ancestral thoughts which had passed down to her when her egg formed, her parent was horrible even by Ender standards. Her species was destructive, yes, but not inherently cruel, and their destructive nature was mitigated by their home. They were never meant for the Overworld, it was not their fault they found themselves destroying it just by existing. It would be like asking a fire not to melt snow, or asking water not to quench a flame. Some things were never meant to exist together.

She wondered if it wouldn’t have been better for her to hatch out as another Morph. From what Jack had said, from what he had read in his books (books she yearned to read for herself, instead of having Jack simply parrot information back to her) it would have been impossible. The Ender Egg, the one birthed from the death of The Ender, wouldn’t transform, it would stay an Ender no matter what it was put before. Kdin wished it wasn’t so. She wished she could be something else.

She paused, sticking her nose up into the air as she picked up the scent of a boar. A low growl formed in her throat, and she headed towards the scent. Sure enough, there was a small family of boar, their coats dark and bristled, their tusks sharp. One stopped rooting around in the ground and lifted its snout, scenting the air as well. It could smell something was different, something was wrong, but Ender Dragons were uncommon, almost unheard of, in the Overworld, and Endermen rarely attacked pigs.

It had no idea of the danger until she had lunged, her jaws closing around its throat as the others bolted.

She was a bit larger than the boar, and she was strong enough to lift it off the ground. She shook her head back and forth, eventually tearing the creature’s head clean off. She tossed the head aside and tore into the body, slashing and biting, spreading entrails and tissue around them. Some she swallowed, though most she simply slashed, tore, and tossed aside, before she returned to savage the body some more. Her tail lashed back and forth, occasionally hitting into a tree and cracking the wood. If her tail struck a man, the blow would be strong enough to snap his spine.

When she was finished, the small clearing was a mess. Blood soaked into the ground, and there were organs scattered everywhere. Part of a lung in one bush, the rest dashed against a rock. Some entrails on a tree branch, along with part of a leg. Her mouth and forepaws were dyed red, the blood slowly drying and flaking off as it did so. It was horrifying.

And it had been her, she had done it. She backed away, making a distressed noise, not understanding what had come over her. She remembered being angry, but she didn’t remember this.

She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts, trying to convince herself that she wasn’t a monster. Immediately her mind jumped to Michael, trying to make the connection between his behavior as a Berserker and her recent fury. She remembered Ryan mentioned something about it before, how dragons had something similar, how in the heat of a battle a dragon could lose itself, could channel their anger and rage into energy, and that energy into destructive power. But she also remembered him telling her how a dragons Fury had more control than a Berserker’s rage, how unlike humans dragons were not the passive victims of their anger, but the masters of it.

But perhaps that only applied to battles where there were allies, for she knew Michael could not distinguish between friend and foe. But Kdin had not destroyed anything she hadn’t set out to destroy, she had come out to hunt and she had attacked, killed, and massacred exactly what she had been hunting. Nothing else had fallen victim to her Fury, apart from a tree here or there, but she hardly thought those counted.

Still, feeling uneasy, she forced herself eat as much of the bloody mash as she could, in an attempt to justify the slaughter. In an attempt to convince herself she wasn’t a monster.

She dreamed of blood and bones that night, of death and screams, and Ender Fire burning the castle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -


	12. Team Building Exercise

When Kdin next left the castle, nearly a week after she had savaged the boar, she was in no mood to deal with anyone. She had already condemned herself a monster, and while everyone knew something was wrong with her, she had refused to share with them exactly what. They didn't need to deal with her problems, she could handle them herself.

She had hoped that her selected section of the forest would be quiet; she had hoped that she wouldn't need to see or speak with anyone. Not anyone from the castle, and not any of the villagers.

She wasn't expecting to find Matt, Jeremy, and Lindsay.

"Lindsay for...you don't need that much ore!" Matt sounded exasperated, as though this wasn't the first time him and Lindsay had had this conversation. As though he knew it would also not be the last time they would have this conversation.

Lindsay, sure enough, had a cart full of blocks of ore, of all different kinds. Most of it was coal ore, some of it was Lapis, and Kdin could even see the rare chunk of emerald peering through, a viridian beacon under a see of black. Without thinking, the dragon rushed forward, beating her wings until she had landed atop the pile of ore, guarding it as though it was her own hoard.

The trio froze at the sudden appearance of the dragon, unsure what to do. Lesser men would have ran in fear of the creature, for though Kdin was a very young dragon, she was still as large as a wolf, and capable of killing a man if she so wished. But the trio did not falter. They were braver than the average man, already warriors honed from countless battles.

Plus, it's sort of hard to be afraid of someone when you've spend numerous hours trying to find where their egg teleported to, only to accidentally knock into it and send it teleporting into the pig pen.

"Oh hey Kdin," Jeremy said. "We didn't know you were in this part of the forest." He considered telling the dragon that they needed that ore to build, but if they were being honest they didn't. _Lindsay_ may need the ore to build, but Matt and Jeremy had plans that didn't involve ore at all. So instead, he asked "do you want to help?"

 ** _Help?_** Kdin asked, cocking her head to the side. **_Help with what? What are you trying to do?_**

"We're creating a new arena," Matt said. "We're trying to make a place where we can store and fight creepers." Kdin looked at what they were building, quiet for a moment, before speaking once again.

 _ **Shouldn’t it be made out of obsidian?**_ She asked. The trio were silent for a moment before Matt and Jeremy each let out loud groans.

"God _damn_ it," Jeremy cursed. "I knew there was something we were doing wrong. Now we'll need to do the whole thing over again."

"How are we going to do it over again?" Matt asked. "We have no obsidian, we can't just go mine enough obsidian to build an arena. This will have to due, we'll just tell them to be careful."

"Oh yeah like any of them are going to be careful," Lindsay cut in. "Gavin blows up a creeper nearly every time he enters the forest, the arena will be destroyed within a day."

 ** _Maybe that can buy you time,_** Kdin suggested. **_Finish this arena, then mine the necessary material for rebuilding it when it's destroyed. Plus, if you build it thick enough, it won't all be destroyed right away, which will buy you even more time._**

"That could work," Jeremy said. "We can use Lindsay's ore to fill in the walls, to make them thicker and more reinforced."

"What?" Lindsay started. "No. Then no one will see my ore!"

"That's the whole point," Matt said.

"Lindsay," Jeremy cut in, "think of it like this. If your ore is on the inside, it's more likely to survive when the creepers blow up. And, _and,_ it will be a surprise for them when it does. They won't be expecting the ore, which makes the reveal of the ore even better." Lindsay seemed mollified by this, glad to know that her ore wouldn't go to waste.

Matt seemed less than pleased, it was far from a solution in his mind. The ore would never be a pleasant surprise, rather it was an irritating eyesore, and part of him wanted it destroyed first.

The group went back to work, however, building the arena, which lasted all of three hours before it was destroyed.


	13. Raiders Of The Lost Bark

Geoff crossed his arms, scowling as he looked over across the forest. Where there had once been trees as far as the eye could see, trees and game, and supplies for his people, there was nothing but stumps and snapped branches, and leaves from the fallen trees.

"What happened, Geoff?" Jack said, coming up to his friend and king. "Why would someone come into the kingdom just to steal our lumber. This can't be a tactic, we have just as many trees on the other side, and plenty of bone meal and saplings to grow more with."

"I don't think they were trying to weaken us, Jack," Geoff confessed. "This wasn't an attack, it was a raid." Which on the one hand was good, it meant they weren't at war with anyone. On the other hand, raiders were never good.

"At least it's not an attack," Jack said. "But we need to do something about it. I can have people start replanting the forest, but we need to deal with the raiders first, otherwise people may get hurt. We'll also need to shift where we hunt."

Geoff made a sound, thinking about his friend's words. The forest wouldn't have any game until it regrew, and even with bone meal it would probably take a while for the forest to grow back, a while for the animals to return to it. Jack was right, until the game returned they would need to move their hunting elsewhere, and until the raiders were taken care of it wouldn't be safe to replant the forest.

"Have Ryan search the area," Geoff ordered. "He'll be able to spot them better."

\-----------------

Ryan decided to fly at night, since it would be easier for him to hide in the darkness, and the raiders were most likely to strike at night. Kdin learned of the plans and, without telling anyone, that night she sneaked out of the castle as well.

In her mind, it made more sense to send her instead of Ryan. Her scales were black, while Ryan's were gold. If there were torches about, or light of any kind, his scales would reflect and shine, and give him away. Hers wouldn't, so it made sense for her to scout.

Of course, Ryan didn't see it that way when he caught scent of her, and pulled her high up into the cloud cover to scold her.

"What are you doing here?" He snapped. "You could get hurt. You may be an Ender Dragon, but your scales are still soft. A well placed arrow could take you out."

"And a well placed torch could give you away," Kdin countered. "Your scales reflect, mine don't. I can fly overhead, see what's there, then fly back before anyone sees me. Let me help!" Ryan was quiet for a moment while he considered her words.

"Fine," he said. "But you're only scanning overhead. You're not to engage them in any way, shape, or form. Understood?" Kdin grumbled, but eventually nodded. She would fly overhead, see what they had, then report back to Ryan. She could do that.

Kdin made sure to fly up fairly high. While her scales were dark as the night sky, if she got too close to any torches she could still be spotted. She was harder to see, but that didn't make her invisible. She also made sure to flap her wings as little as possible, keeping to the air currents and thermals to keep her up above the land.

She smelled the air as she flew, and sure enough it led her to those responsible for the destruction. They were in the forest, cutting down birch trees as far as the eye could see, and hunting any game they came across. There weren't many, because it was just a band of raiders, but there were more than Kdin would have liked. It was a rather large band, and that was unsettling. Angling her wings, Kdin picked up a new current and headed back to Ryan.

"There's a lot of them," she told him. "I don't know how large raiding parties usually are, but it seemed like there were a lot of them. Not enough for an army, but I think they may be a band of travelers trying to make the land theirs. Maybe they're hoping we won't miss it."

"Let's head back to Geoff," Ryan said. "He'll want to know about this."


	14. To Battle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From now on //text// will be mental talk, and <> is going to be dragontalk, for the sake of ease.

Kdin and Ryan headed back to the castle almost immediately, to report what they had found to Geoff. The King listened to their report, to their estimate of the raiders forces, a frown on his face.

"We can't let them say," he said at last. "I was hoping this would be easy to deal with, some small problem, but from what you've told me, we have only one option. We have to go to battle."

Kdin blinked, looking from Geoff to Ryan, and even to Jack. The dragon knew about battles, had read about them, or heard about them from others, but she hadn't yet experienced one for herself. But from what she understood, they were serious.

//Are you sure?// She asked Geoff, and the king nodded gravely. It was then she remembered the second thing she knew about battles. They were thrilling.

//When?// She asked. //When do we go into battle?// Geoff snorted, laughed, and raised an eyebrow at her.

"We?" He asked. "You're not going anywhere."

//But,// Kdin started to protest, but Geoff cut her off with a sharp motion of his hand.

"No," he said, firmly. "You may be a dragon, Kdin, but you only just hatched. You're too young to be anywhere near battle."

//But I'm an Ender Dragon,// Kdin said, finally finishing her thought. //Anything an adult could do, I can do too, just on a smaller scale. But I don't need to be big to be dangerous, you know that!//

"It doesn't matter whether or not you're dangerous," Geoff snapped. "What matters is whether or not I'm willing to risk the life of a _baby_ to battle, which I'm not!"

Kdin wanted to argue, but the look in Geoff's eyes told her the decision was final, that there would be no changing his mind. Lowering her head, she spat at the ground, the stone melting away at her breath.

//Yes Geoff,// she muttered, gritting her teeth and hating it. But, just as she was giving up, a thought came into her head. The King may not want her to fight, but if she went to the battle, if she fought anyway, then there would be nothing Geoff, or any of them, really, could do to stop her. If she was already there, why not use her?

"Good," Geoff said, heedless of the plan forming in Kdin's head. "Everyone get ready. Jack, I want a full report in two hours."

\----

While the others were getting ready for the battle, Kdin was watching them, trying to figure out how best to follow them. She knew the way to the battlefield, knew she could get there on her own, and for a while that was her main plan.

But she also knew she'd probably reach the battlefield long before them, so it turned into a game of trying to calculate times and travel, to see how long she would have to wait to leave in order to reach the battle the same time they did, or at least a little after. A little after may work better.

"So you're just going to follow us, aren't you?" Kdin heard a voice from behind her, and turned, only to find Lindsay, Matt, and Jeremy standing there. It had been Matt who had spoke.

//What?// Kdin asked, trying to make it seem as though that was the dumbest thing she had ever heard. //No. Of course not. Where would you get a crazy idea like that?//

"You've been watching us prepare since we started," Jeremy pointed out. "You're planning something."

"Yeah, and we want to help," Lindsay finished. Kdin blinked, caught off guard.

//What?// She asked dumbly.

"You may be a baby," Matt said, "but you're also a dragon. I would say you're in no more danger from this battle as the rest of us. You're about the size of a person, can destroy shit just by touching it, and you have whatever it is Ender Dragons breathe."

"I think it's some form of acid charge and spray," Jeremy said. "But the point is, you're going to be in danger, but you're going to be in the same amount of danger as the rest of us. Just because you're younger doesn't mean shit. I mean, aren't dragons babies until they're fifty anyway?"

//More or less,// Kdin said. To be honest, she wasn't sure exactly how fast Ender Dragons grew. None of the books seemed to know, either.

"Then it's settled," Lindsay said. "You're coming with us. Now, all we need to figure out is, how?"


	15. Raider Be Gone

As it turned out, dragons could be fairly resistant to potions. It was the reason Ryan had to drink so many. But luckily for Kdin, Jeremy was nothing if not a master at potion making, so he was able to brew up a batch of extra strength Invisibility Potions. The plan was to have Kdin follow from a distance, drinking the potions to keep her hidden from sight and flying downwind to keep her hidden from scent. Ideally, it would also offer her some safety from any enemy they may fly over on their way to the battle. They couldn't shoot her down if they couldn't see her, after all. The plan was foolproof. Except the potion was untested, and magic could be finicky, and....

"I cannot believe you would disobey direct orders like this!" Ryan snapped at the younger dragon. He was currently in he guise of a knight, not having much reason to be a dragon, at least not yet. "Do you have any idea how dangerous that was? What if the potion had worn off sooner, and you had been shot down by the enemy?! Or if one of us thought you were the enemy and shot you down ourselves?!"

"We were being careful," Jeremy protested, though he shrank back when Ryan's gaze turned towards him. "What, we were? She was invisible for most of it."

"Yeah until she wasn't," Michael said. "Nearly gave Gavin a heart attack when she just appeared behind us in the sky."

"We can't send her back, Geoff," Jack said to his king, while Ryan and the Lads continued to argue with Kdin and her allies. "We'll need to keep her here, and if she's here she may as well help."

"Damn it," Geoff muttered. "This was their plan all along, wasn't it?"

"I think it may have been," Jack confessed.

Geoff thought for a moment, weighing his options. As much as he didn't like Kdin fighting, because she was a baby, some of what Jeremy and the others had said made sense. He couldn't treat Kdin the same way he would a baby human, because she clearly wasn't one. At the very least, she seemed on par with where the Lads had been when they first started to fight.

"Alright that's enough," he said, getting involved. "Kdin, you can stay and help, but as soon as this is over you're grounded for a month."

//That...is actually fair,// Kdin admitted. She had disobeyed direct orders from the king, so in hindsight she had gotten off rather easy.

"No I mean literally grounded," Geoff clarified. "You're not allowed to fly for a month."

//That's!...still fair.//

"And you three," Geoff, said, turning to Lindsay, Matt, and Jeremy. "You three are stuck on stable duty for two months, for helping her with this entire damn plan." There was some mumbling from among the trio, though ultimately they too decided that it was a fair punishment for what they had done. Satisfied, Geoff clapped his hands and turned towards his army.

"Alright, assholes," he said, "let's kick some raider ass!"

\-------

The raiders had certainly bitten off far more than they could chew, which soon became evident. They were outnumbered by Geoff's armies and completely unprepared to face Ryan, even if he wasn't yet a dragon. The battle seemed to be going good. It looked as though the kingdom was going to get an easy victory for once.

That was until more raiders showed up, better supplied ones, and it was starting to look more like an invasion than anything else.

Kdin stayed high above the fighting, trying to keep out of the way of any arrows, but when she saw a stray arrow strike Matt in the shoulder, and the man went down with a cry.

Her vision blurred, faded to a dark, rich violet, and she felt the powers of Ender build up in her chest, cloak around her body. Without thinking she dove, unleashing a violet mist as she did so.

The enemy saw this new foe and tried to fire at the small black target, but their arrows disintegrated as they grew close to her body, destroyed by the Ender forces cloaking her. Realizing they had no hope of victory, especially not since Ryan had shed his own disguise, and was razing their flanks. Without a hope of victory the raiders turned and fled, leaving their weapons, supplies, and dead where they were. The day was won.


	16. Epilogue

As they sorted through the bodies of the slain raiders, something became increasingly clear. They all had the same specialized armor that Geoff had, armor not found in this area.

“Armor like this comes from Cainyan,” Geoff said. “That’s where I got mine, and that has to be where they got theirs.”

//What’s Cainyan?// Kdin asked, looking the armor over.

“It’s a cluster of kingdoms far from here,” Jack said. “Chorus, Azul, and Crimson are the main ones.”

“We should go investigate,” Geoff said. “Jack, Ryan, and I will go, the rest of you can stay here and hold down the fort until we get back. Michael, as my eldest and heir, you’re in charge until we return.”

“Why are you leaving at all?” Ray asked. “So they’re from Cainyan, so what?”

“Because this is a long way to come to raid a kingdom,” Geoff said. “Something could be happening there, and if trouble gets big enough, it could spill over here.”

“He’s right,” Jack said. “What happens there has a habit of spilling out elsewhere. It would be better if we go nip it in the bud sooner rather than later.”

“What about us?” Michael said. “Why can’t we come with you?”

“Because someone needs to hold down the fort while we’re gone,” Geoff said. “Don’t worry, we’ll be back soon.”

“Where will you go first?” Gavin asked.

“Crimson,” Geoff said. “I think King Sarge would like to hear about this.”

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter isn't as long as I would have liked, but it is serving as a prologue. The next chapters will be longer, since I'll have a month to write them.


End file.
